USA Day 4 - Las Vegas
July 27, 2008
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
The highlight of this trip for Wayne was our stay at Las Vegas!
From San Francisco, we took a one hour flight on United Airlines to Las Vegas. From the air, I snapped some fantastic shots of the Grand Canyon, and did you know some parts of the Grand Canyon is covered in snow?
Once we arrived in Las Vegas, we had to collect our rental car from Hertz, which we had pre-booked online before we arrived. Now, let me warn all you travelers, the quote that they give you online is an estimation, so be prepared to fork out a lot more when you get there. Because, things like insurance and tax isn’t included, so we got quite a shock when we saw the final figures. Plus, we ordered a Mazda 6, but they ran out of Mazda 6s, instead, we got some big ass Buick.
I didn’t like the car. It was too big, and steering seemed a bit off. But Wayne was too lazy to drive back to Hertz to change it.
Another thing Wayne had to get used to was driving on the right side of the road. There were two near misses which I won’t repeat here for his ego’s sake.
Still on rental cars, I must say, the system in place at the airport is fantastic! Because of the massive number of people renting cars, they actually have a dedicated terminal for all the rental car agencies. So it was quick, easy and systematic. Chop chop, sign, key, ignition, drive.
It was a short drive to our hotel on the strip, and thankfully, because Wayne was getting a bit nervous driving on the wrong/right side of the road. We stayed at the New York New York Casino and Hotel, which is situated at the beginning of the strip. After settling in, we had the whole afternoon to explore a few casinos.
Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, Tropicana, MGM Grand.
I may have captioned this photo wrong. I can’t remember if we saw the lions at MGM or Mirage. I’ll change it once i’ve confirmed it with Wayne
After all the walking, we bought ourselves a souvenir size strawberry margarita from Cayote Ugly.
After a short nap, we had to get ready for our first Cirque Du Soleil. We bought tickets to watch “Love” by The Beatles.
It was FANTASTIC! We both loved and grew up with The Beatles music, so we were singing along to the songs and tried to take in all the sights and sounds. It was a beautiful production. I loved the music so much I bought the CD for Wayne’s dad, coz he loves The Beatles too.
The songs are remastered, and some were rearranged and edited to sound more current and upbeat for the show. It wasn’t a huge deviation from the original, so don’t worry you Beatles fans out there. I’ll put up a few tracks on my blog radio tomorrow.
Here’s a trailer of the show
posted in Geek |
Ooh… I never got down to having one of those margaritas!
I think the lions must have been at the MGM Grand, that’s where I stayed when we were in Vegas and the lions were there
Comment by germaine — July 27, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
germaine: thanks for the clarification… heehhe better change the caption.
and those margaritas… solid man. value for money. all these college students were buying them, i felt all young again.
Comment by Angela — July 28, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Hi Angela
Came from Janice’s blog. Your trip looks fascinating. Just wondering, ard how much did the entire trip cost for the both of you as my HTB & I are considering states for our honeymoon. Thanks.
Comment by Ariel — July 28, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
great photo. Did you bring your bike there or rent one at SF?
Comment by khoo — July 30, 2008 @ 11:31 am
Ariel: Oooo we haven’t done our final calculations. But i do know, we put aside 15k for everything including lodging, food, shopping, car rental, gas, souvenirs etc, but we didn’t reach it. So we were under budget. By how much i don’t know. :/ I can only tell you roughly how much things cost there. Flight - $2000/pax Lodging USD$100-$200 per night, food ranges from USD$7-50, rental car for 10 days was about 1k.
Khoo: we rented one in SF
Comment by Angela — July 30, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Hey Angela,
I’m going to US for my honeymoon like ariel - and we’re considering renting a car - which car company did u rent the car from? we looked at one on hertz, and they estimated US$345 for 7 days - am just worried that the price is going to sky-rocket because of additional taxes. Any tips on what to expect?
Comment by fas — September 8, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
Fas: Heya, we used Hertz only because we wanted something reliable and trust worthy. But in all honesty, there’s alot of other car rentals which are more affordable. We found out the hard way….
Anyways, our rental car for 10 days included the insurance and all that jazz. So that should give you an estimate. if you like, drop me an email, and i’ll share with u the nitty gritty cost of the rental
angelaATblursotongDOTcom
Comment by Angela — September 10, 2008 @ 8:30 am